infected slut princess wrote:deaddmwalking wrote:
I don't think incel means what you think it means.
Ah, touchy subject I see.
Not for me, personally. You see, I remember you trying to use 'virgin' as an insult previously. I am the father of three children so an accusation that I'm a virgin is tone deaf at best. However, I think that it's important to have standards and trying to lose one's virginity without regard to with whom is unwise. I also know people that are asexual and I don't think that's a problem. And finally, people who use the term 'incel' claim it as an identity, which makes it hard to make it an insult. If you say 'you're an incel' and they say 'yes, I've spent thousands of hours posting on reddit on how I am, in fact, an incel' it misses the mark. That same group apparently uses 'Chad' and 'Stacy' as insults. But sure - you can keep using it as an insult and everyone will keep recognizing that you're an idiot and refuse to take you seriously. So, good?
infected slut princess wrote:
Since you're asking we can presume you;ve basically given up on your claim that the D&D idea of "good" endorses killing orc babies.
I think you're guilty of a reading fail. So I'll explain this for you in baby-steps so you don't miss it again.
You were completely wrong regarding 'justified homicide' because you have trouble with the definition of words (see: incel; see: murder). You attempted to claim that the game rules 'provide a non-legal standard for whether the Paladin is murdering if he decides to start stabbing little kids'.
Up to this point in the conversation, everyone that was not you recognized that the alignment system in D&D
means nothing. It is neither internally consistent nor useful in predicting what behaviors are or are not allowed. It is CERTAINLY TRUE that killing evil creatures is generally considered a good act in D&D, regardless of whether I find the citation. I may be guilty of hyperbole because the justification for killing beholders and ghouls may not apply to 'helpless' creatures, even if they are evil, but that's the result of inconsistent application of alignment.
Ultimately, you took my supposition - that killing orc babies as a good act - as my personal belief that I feel is
justified by a reading of the rules. Again, if you had been paying attention
up to that point, you'd realize that I previously indicated that any action can be 'justified' by playing your alignment. If you are a Paladin and you argue that killing everyone that detects as evil is a good thing, even if you're pulling that argument
out of your ass, THE RULES don't contradict it.
Now, you're trying to claim that 'even if the rules don't say killing orc babies is evil, it totally is and every reasonable person should recognize that'. And I'm saying that reasonable people disagree about interpretations all the time. If you and your GM are in agreement, there's no problem, but if you're not, there is.
So, in ISP's game, a Paladin killing orc babies is grounds to lose all of their Paladin abilities. In other games with a 40k ethos, 'suffer not the abomination to live' would be the order of the day and you could seriously lose your Paladin powers for NOT killing the evil races in whatever manner you find them. ULTIMATELY, the fact that the rules don't define these well enough to eliminate any misunderstanding IS ITSELF a problem.
You have failed to realize that you have been pwned for the last 2 pages because your argument boils down to 'D&D morality SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING' and nobody disagrees with that, but it DOESN'T ACTUALLY MEAN ANYTHING.
Let's start with this sentence:
"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life."
Good character is defined in game terms. We know that someone is good because they write 'Good' on their character sheet. Now, where is 'innocent' defined? Are orc babies innocent? How do we know?
If you let an orc baby grow to adulthood and it is part of a war party that sacks a human village (that includes children who are not 'often chaotic evil') did you fail to protect innocent lives? Or by killing orc babies did you fail to protect innocent lives? Regardless of how you answer that question, where do you validate it with the rules? If you disagree with your table, how do you decide who is right?
infected slut princess wrote:
All we seem able to confirm is that D&D implies some kind of moral realism but an objective and comprehensive system of ethics has not been provided by the writers of D&D games, that destroying innocent life is evil, and that orc babies might count as innocent. But that is different than your claim that D&D says killing orc babies is "good", which is basically somethign you just made up. That's fine and all, you obviously have to fill in the blanks in some cases. But just because deaddmwalking fills in the blank with "killing orc babies is good" doesn't mean D&D said "killing orc babies is good." And y'know we can also fill in the blanks with something of a "normal" moral intuition (i.e. not deaddmwalking's incel morality) and ignore your silly arguments about how killing orc babies "reduces evil in the world."
Again, you could if you had a basis in rules. Now, you've already stated that the Book Of Exalted Deeds is not part of the SRD and not a common part of the rules, but you'll be happy to know that it does support your position. On page 9-10 it specifically calls out murdering orc babies as evil, but it doesn't go as far as you would probably like. It certainly implies that killing the young of SOME races is a good act.
To quote the section on Violence:
Book of Exalted Deeds wrote:Violence is a part of the D&D world, and not inherently evil in the context of that world... A paladin smiting a blackguard or a bule dragon is not committing an evil act: the cause of good expects and often demands that violence be brought to bear against its enemies... There are certain limits that good characters must observe. First, violence in the name of good must have a just cause which in the D&D world means primarily that it must be directed against evil. The second is that the violence should have good intentions. Launching an incursion into orc territory is not a good act if the primary motivation is profit... The third consideration is one of discrimination. Violence cannot be considered good when it is directed against noncombatants (including children and females of at least some races and cultures.
So, since you struggle with reading comprehension, while you claim vindication I will point out that this doesn't really solve anything at all. Orcs, specifically, are protected from being slaughtered and you weren't able to find anything in the core rules to that effect. And even in these passages, it doesn't define what young SHOULD be killed on sight, if any. Clearly the game presents 'wyrmling' dragons as opponents to be killed, so again, CLEARLY, the directives of a good alignment are vague and subject to personal interpretation.
Which ultimately means that they're not making the game better. You can 100% strip them out and the only thing that changes is nobody argues about whether an action is permissible or forbidden. Or whether a character would know before their deity punishes them.
You know - what was originally asserted before this whole aside. Killing orc babies is monstrous regardless of whether your GM thinks it is evil or good. Not having to argue it is an improvement. Like,
obviously.